Normalizing fasting for better health

Fasting is as natural as breathing. Imagine how healthy our relationship with food would be if we didn’t give ourselves access 24/7?

From the moment we wake up, we use energy that we are not even aware of thinking of what we’ll eat and when. This time and energy we spend thinking about eating, preparing food, and eating can be used for something else! Perhaps it is time to try fasting?

Let’s first look at the amount of nutrition one needs to stay alive and healthy. Privileged people practice fasting (while many starve…), so there must be a hidden gem when it comes to giving ourselves a break from ALL things food. Give your hands a break from preparing food and your body a break from the hard work of breaking down the food you consume.

What is fasting?

Fasting is quite simply abstaining from eating any food for a period of time that can range from a few hours to a few months (under medical supervision!) The latter end of the range may be extreme. But we naturally fast for at least 8 hours every single day when we sleep. As we sleep, the body is focused on internal housekeeping and night-only repairs, since during the day, it is breaking down food for energy.

In the West where we have 24/7 access to food, we have become addicted to overfeeding ourselves. It’s recommended that we eat 3 square meals every day–breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The word breakfast literally means to break from the fast. We have been taught that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and yet this is the easiest time for some of us to continue fasting. Many people can skip breakfast, but to skip dinner is much harder since we naturally fast when we sleep and falling asleep on an empty tank is hard– again, acknowledge your privilege.

Snacking between meals

If we snack in between meals, we are loading our body with more food before it has the chance to digest our bigger meals ”square meals”. In doing so, we are sending the wrong information, which keeps our digestive systems working less than optimal.

It’s not a surprise that as society has become more consumerist, eating more during the day is encouraged and normalized. Snacking has become a serious business. There are many companies that make millions every year selling us snacks full of salt, sugar and saturated fats. What if we started eating our 3 meals a day and nothing else? Would we die of malnutrition? Of course not! Many people don’t know when their next meal is coming.

Why should I fast?

There are many benefits to fasting, both health and lifestyle-related.

• Gives your body a break so it can heal, repair, and discard defective cells.
• Get a mind vacation from thinking of food, grocery shopping, preparing and finally, eating.
• Food can be costly if you are “feed the beast” every few hours.
• The more you eat your feelings, the more you rely on food for emotional numbness over your plates.
• Time to explore other interests.
• It challenges you to meet your friends for something other than food. Your wallet will thank you because you can eat before meeting up.
• It can provide mental clarity and space to communicate with a higher power.
• Teaches you discipline, mind over matter.
• Lose weight.
• Appreciate the food you eat. When you don’t over-feed, you appreciate the food you eat more.
• It makes you a better person as you know what hunger pains feel like, so you’re more likely to help those who need it.

Vegans and fasting

Many people reduce veganism to JUST food. This is not accurate for many who enter this lifestyle out of compassion for animals, the environment, and health. While vegan food is great, if we eat mindlessness whenever we want, we step on our own toes. Avocados, for example, use a lot of energy to produce and yet they have become a defining point for online veganism. You can do something about this by not buying avocados because even the people whose native food it is can often not afford it because we are obsessed with it.

My fasting experience

I have done intermittent fasting for many years without knowing. The longest I have ever done so is 1 day, not including fasting during the night. It hasn’t been easy once my stomach starts rumbling and churning, but once I keep at it, it gets easier.

On Sunday night, we watched a documentary on fasting. It educated us on all types of fasting. Including intermittent fasting, water-only fasting, religious fasting, weight loss, chronic disease like cancer, hypertension, diabetes and more. The one that stood out to us was intermittent fasting because this is the one that is most common. Have you ever had to fast before doing bloodwork? This is intermittent fasting because you don’t eat after dinner, then go straight to the doctor when you wake up on an empty stomach. Water is the only permissible drink during such fast.

Giddily after our movie dinner and dessert, we jumped right in and fasted from 7 pm Sunday to 4 pm Monday. 2020 herald a 4 day work week for me, with Mondays off. We worked out for 1 hour 45 minutes including the walks to and from the park.

It was easier than we thought! We continued fasting during the week–after dinner at 7 or 8 pm until lunch between 1:30 to 2:30 pm. On Friday, I finally succumbed to the crepes that my wife had lovingly packed for me as an emergency lunch at work.

My Positive side effects of fasting

• Not thinking about food so much.
• Fewer cravings.
• Body positive – it helps that my stomach stays flat throughout the day as I work off my holiday food of yesteryear.
• Enjoying food more when I have it.
• Eating slower.
• Being satiated with one full serving instead of eating more and more, until I feel like I’m about to explode.
• Taking my 10k steps seriously and being overall more healthy
• Drinking more water and herbal teas to cleanse and feel less empty, especially teas in the morning which warms me.

With all the above benefits I have experienced, I will continue intermittent fasting for as long as it feels good for my body as I feel that normalizing fasting for better health is important.